Kang Je-gyu's 'My Way' / 마이 웨이 (2011): Take Two

Shirai (Fan Bingbing), one of the characters in Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011) is a Chinese sniper. There were thousands of women snipers engaged in combat during the World War II period-- none of them American. Consider Lyudmila "Lady Death" Pavlychenko, a Ukrainian Soviet sniper who killed 309 Axis men. Women snipers fought during the American War in Vietnam, as is depicted in Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket (Ngoc Le plays a Viet Cong sniper).    

Another element of Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011): the runner. The two main characters compete in races before the outbreak of war -- just as in Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981). In both films, running is another way to spotlight race, class and socio-economic competition. It makes one think of the Olympics, the ancient Greeks, The Iliad and the "tribal core" sports of the 21st century. It also might make one think of the Robert Altman film MASH (1970), set during the Korean War of 1950-1953, and prison films like Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard (1974), as well as Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire (1981), which among other things deals with anti-Semitism. In My Way, there is not only the runner vs. runner aspect; at Normandy, we see Axis soldiers playing football (i.e. soccer) before the coming Allied invasion.

Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011) also deals with prisons, POW camps, gulags, concentration camps, forced labor and all of their most terrible conditions. Indeed, the German title for the film at its 2012 release in Germany was Prisoners of War -- in English. 

Since forever, it seems, POWs and prisoners in general have been treated very badly. Who would want to be trapped in an Iranian or North Korean prison? Or a Chinese, German, Russian, Turkish one? Or a French or British penal colony? During the American Civil War, both sides treated POWs in an abysmal manner, leaving them -- their fellow  Americans -- exposed to the elements, malnourished and decimated by infectious disease. Captured freedmen and free black men were either executed or sent back into, or into, slavery. Today, groups like the so-called Islamic State execute prisoners en masse. I doubt treatment of prisoners in ancient times was a pretty picture, either. 

Why are prisoners treated so cruelly? It's so easy -- too easy. Millions of prisoners -- civilians and soldiers, grownups and children -- perished while in prisons, camps and gulags during WW2. Millions more died in captivity after the war, never returned by the captor nations to their home countries -- or expatriated and then imprisoned-to-death in their home countries. My Way reminds us.

Today's Rune: Growth.   

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015.  Approximately 500,000 casualties in this one campaign of the First World War: mostly Ottoman imperial troops, British and French imperial troops, Australian, New Zealander, Indian, Canadian and German troops. 

100,000 dead in eight and one-half months.  

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015. Pertinent books, movies, poems and cultural exchanges have bubbled up in the past 100 years.

Here in Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981),  Mel Gibson's character Frank Dunne looks across barbed wire at a Turkish POW on the beach at Gallipoli. Turkey is now part of NATO.  

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015. Recent Turkish film from the Ottoman point of view. 


June Tabor's excellent 1976 version of Eric Bogle's powerful 1971 song, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," which is all about Gallipoli from an ANZAC perspective.

Perhaps fittingly, the French and Turks battled over the same area as the site of the Trojan War (circa 1250 B.C.). 'Nuff said. 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

The Ottoman Empire and the Great War of 1914-1918

In developing a mock online class on The Great War and the 1920s for training purposes, it's been interesting to connect the dots between the end of the Ottoman Empire -- and the intention of the Allied Powers to divvy up its territories -- to today's political and cultural developments throughout these same areas. Notice that Syria is smack-dab in the middle of this map of the Middle East.

For starters, all one need do is look at these maps to see the jigsaw puzzling impact of the Great War of 1914-1918 and its aftermath in the region, and on the world.

Here are some of my notes for such a class so far:

Unit 1, Lesson 2. The Ottoman Empire in Context.

Objectives:

To understand what was at stake for the Ottoman Empire in 1914.

To understand why the Ottomans allied themselves to the Central Powers.

To analyze why the Allied Powers sought access to Ottoman territories.

To analyze the strategic importance of geography and natural resources to all players.

Read G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Delacorte Press, 2006), pages  74-79.

What was at stake for the Ottoman Empire in 1914?

Why did the Ottomans ally themselves with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires?

Why did the British, French and Russian Empires want access to territories under the control of the Ottoman Empire?

Consider resources and geography. Petroleum and waterways.

Unit 1, Lesson 3. Gallipoli.

Objectives:

To understand the Allied campaign to capture Constantinople/Istanbul.

To analyze how the Ottoman Turks contained the Allied attack at Gallipoli.

To understand the political and cultural impact of the Gallipoli Campaign.

Gallipoli Disaster. Read G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Delacorte Press, 2006), pages  265-272.

What was the Allied plan to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war?

How did the Ottoman Turks contain the Allied attack at Gallipoli?

Additional reading (primary sources): James Hannah, ed., The Great War Reader (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2000), pages 151-164.

Unit 1, Lesson 4. Armenian Genocide.

Objectives:

To understand why the Ottoman leadership conceived of its Armenian population as enemies.

To analyze the role of the Russian Empire in Ottoman calculation.

To understand the essential details of the Armenian Genocide.

To understand the aspirations of the Armenian and Kurdish peoples.

To analyze the longterm political and cultural impact of the Armenian Genocide.

Read G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Delacorte Press, 2006), pages  289-291.

Why did the leadership of the Ottoman Empire scapegoat the Armenian population?

What was the role of the Russian Empire in Ottoman calculations?

Unit 1, Lesson 5. Palestine Front. Read G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Delacorte Press, 2006), pages  538-541.

Unit 1, Lesson  6. Mesopotamia Campaign, 1915-1918.

Lieutenant General Frederick S. Maude after Allied capture of Baghdad in 1917: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."

Critical thinking. What were the main objectives of the Allied forces in Mesopotamia?

What was the role of disease and the medical corps in the Mesopotamia Campaign?

Unit 1, Lesson 7. Treaty of Versailles, Treaty of Sèvres,  Mandate System. Emergence of Modern Turkey (Greek War, Smyrna). Syria and Lebanon, Palestine, etc. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. Maps: UK National Archives.   

Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I

Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I: A Film by Marty Callaghan (The Minutes of History Series, 2006) gives a rare and helpful overview of the catastrophic human disaster called variously the Great War, the First World War and World War I -- from the perspective of the "Middle East" and "Near East." With so much ground to cover, it focuses on the Turkish Ottoman Empire and its regrouping as modern Turkey; the British Empire; the Russian Empire; the Arab revolt; the geo-strategic fight over resources (Suez Canal, Dardanelles, Persian Gulf, fresh water sources, petroleum); and to a lesser extent, the French Empire, the German Empire, Persia-Iran, the Kurds, Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Jews and Indian troops.

Even a cursory watch will help viewers trace the connection of 1914-1918 and continued warring into the 1920s as set-up for today's turmoil in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel, Gaza, Libya, Egypt and so on, including Kurdish guerilla activity. Blood and Oil does a fine job showing why Turkey remains an important regional power, though it never directly deals with the Armenian Genocide, and it might have been expanded to include North African fighting in places like Libya. 

Today's Rune: Possessions.  

It's a Political World

"The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions . . . . ." -- George W. Bush, "Meet the Press with Tim Russert," 2/8/2004.

Archy Hamilton, on his way to enlist in the Australian Light Horse to reinforce the Anglo-French attack against the crumbling Ottoman Empire in 1915: "We don't stop them there, they could end up here." Here being the Australian Outback. Them being Johnny Turk. (Peter Weir's Gallipoli, 1981).


Today's Rune: Constraint.

Here Comes Johnny Turk Again

Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the course and the perennial relevance of the topic, I love teaching The Great War and the 1920s. The era's visual art, poetry, memoir, politics, music and technology mix together in an exciting, devastating swirl. Even though the last of the WWI veterans are dying off, today's world is very much a product of that era.

One of the many great films made during or about The Great War (1914-1918), a very anti-English and anti-war story, is Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981). Starring Mark Lee and a young Mel Gibson as Australian volunteers sent to fight "Johnny Turk" on the Gallipoli Penninsula (in a failed effort to break through to Istanbul), Weir (with co-writer David Williamson) takes a buddy movie and elevates it to a level that is not atypical in war films.

The thing is, no matter how strong the anti-war statement, the folly of war and mass violence persists. Such is human nature, apparently. Still, Gallipoli inspires the viewer to stand once again aghast at the human squander of it all, if just for a moment.

The best song about the Australian experience at Gallipoli is The Pogues' rendition of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda." It has the exact emotional resonance of how many Americans feel about the Vietnam War. In the grand scheme of things, Iraq will not be far behind.



Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Birthdays: Susan Sontag, Colette.

Güle güle gidin!